Thorner

We aren’t that team. Let’s just make the playoffs

What? We better not trade this guy

Dahlin played

Ducks seem to have no idea what they are doing 3 V 3

“They were going to name the internet “Rob”, but then they named it “Internet.” thanks, Dan

Sabres have been on their heels basically the entire period. Power has had an excellent game

J. Ewing Hoover

I kinda liked it better when they had eclipsed the Cubs steak of championship-less seasons when accounting for the fact the CFL only has 8 teams John Milton-Esque reign They are very nearly the new Bills

This post touches on a lot of things. I love this board, and the interactions it produces far more than the national hockey league product. I don’t really even watch it. I used to love it. I don’t even know if the Sabres killed it for me, or if the league killed the Sabres. Don’t really know which way is up. My loyalty is to the crest. I don’t live in Buffalo, and never have, but if the Sabres left Buffalo there’d be no more hobby anymore. Because they are the BUFFALO Sabres. The crest is a buffalo, between two sabres for jeepers sakes. I can love them and i can hate them and sometimes that’s a very fine line but the sport would be barren, for me, without them

Good breakdown of how Ewing theory manifests

I don’t think I’m prepared for the amount of red X / green vomit one-two punch combos I’d find coming my way, but you are a gentleman and scholar - and I showed my mom your post. It’s going up on the fridge!

Never know. We got a team back here in Winnipeg when they said it would never happen

Often a team missing their best player elevates due to the loss of one player but the combined increase in output of the “rest.” I’d imagine it’d be even more prominent in hockey as one player makes much less difference than in basketball And Mario Lemieux’s points per game dropped by 15% in the playoffs. He’s missing something! Good player tho. Not everyone can be the epitome of intangibles and elevated play like Jack Eichel is, for example, putting Mario to shame by INCREASING his points per game in the playoffs by 16%

Ewing theory. Yes, it predates Auston Matthews

More goals than assists every year as a negative? I do see the bias you mentioned considering TT haha As for talk of Matthews “missing” something intangible: that’s absurd

Your strategy of never having any goalposts at all has worked out well

The team has been very bad for a very long time. We can logically conclude that someone is responsible. Or someone(s). It doesn’t really matter who we blame in the end for causing it: because we know in the end the owner is tasked with fixing it. If not, who else? What we are discussing is mostly the semantics of whether Terry did it, or allowed / allows it to happen obviously Terry isn’t out here just hiring amazing GMs who’s incredible aptitude somehow consistently fails to manifest through a comprehensive analysis of the gamut of moves made in the micro, like, we’d see some iceberg poking above the surface of a 76 point average in 5 seasons. We know Adams was agreeable to the format Terry wanted for the team based on the conditions he took over the GM job, and otherwise unable to convince his owner of a more efficient plan. Removing the GM only matters if we hire someone better the next time, but as Promo points out re: other owned teams - it can happen by chance. Easy choice to make after an analysis period of 5 years, imo. The risk of employing an inferior GM is minimal

The logic of Bane’s “open door” prison I kid. But seriously, that was the logic: the illusion of hope was the key aspect of the torture I think that’s where the “might as well sell” side comes from

He predictably led the league or was near the top of the league in penalties drawn for quite a few years, allowing any team with a capable power play a world of opportunity. Scholars will document whether we capitalized on that. Skinner may be totally shot, now, I don’t watch much hockey, but there was a good stretch of time where he was a very strong overall positive in the right fit If the buyout was the right call, it was the right call. But it’s not hindsight to say that re: team competitiveness, which is the only important factor, clearing the cap space was always only the first half of the equation

Definitely the Joey Tribbiani

I still think Adams can get it done, this season

And the social media team showed Adams over the moon at snagging Matt Irwin. It’s documenting ineptitude across the board, we already knew this When fans don’t see their owners involved they scream, “absentee owner!”.

Doesn’t that fact the “everything is actually fine” defence is being employed wantonly, after a stretch of hockey that, according to history, literally couldn’t have been worse, illustrate to you are arguing with an unmoveable position? There’s no standard. There’s nothing you could point out that classifies as failure: hockey history dealt its most significant blow and the position was left undaunted. There’s no proof against it: the team is simply fine until such a time as it’s good: those are the parameters

As long as he gets fired from the GM position after indisputably falling flat on his face in embarrassing fashion for 5 years (should we miss this year), as so told by numerous avenues of demonstrable evidence from team building down to, most importantly, record over an uncommonly long time frame to fail to find an iota of success regardless of context and geographical location, I’m good

If we miss the playoffs, I think it’s basically 50/50. 5 years is a long time; on the other hand, I could see Terry and others pointing to someone like Yzerman in Detroit in defence of Adams.. “it takes time” etc etc.